Custom DVD, enhancing the German MCP release with English subtitles by AnDeRsSon.

THE NAKED COUNTESS is a rather unusual and surprisingly dark erotic film by German standards of the Seventies. At a time when the majority of German sexploitation consisted either of silly sex comedies or “report films” such as the infamous SCHOOLGIRL REPORT series (which broke all national box office records) this film had other things in mind.
In fact, it hardly resembles any of its German contemporaries – instead, it’s rather reminiscent of both Scandinavian genre efforts and, in fact, of genre mavericks such as Jess Franco, Radley Metzger and Max Pécas.

The De Sade-esque story of innocent country girl Verena (Ursula Blauth), who is seduced and corrupted by an obsessively voyeuristic elderly Count (played by Wolfgang Lukschy of THE DARK EYES OF LONDON and FOR A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS) is told in flashbacks within a time frame of one evening throughout which a police inspector (played by director Kurt Nachmann himself) investigates at the Count’s villa after the naked corpse of a young man is found in the Count’s car by a road in the countryside.

Lensed with obvious pleasure by Franz X. Lederle (cinematographer of VANESSA and BLOODY FRIDAY) and carried by a fantastic score by Gerhard Heinz (parts of which he later reused for the German version of Jess Franco’s EROTISMO), the film evokes a rather detached, almost surreal mood which is supported by comparatively sparse, stylised dialogue. Hieronymus Bosch’s “Garden of Delights” is frequently referenced and the title song is called “The sins of yesterday and today” – you know what you are in for!
Being a West German film, there is, of course, a somewhat moralistic undercurrent, but as is so often the case, it is impossible to take it seriously, because the air of anti-libertinage-ism is contradicted strongly by the aggressive and decadent (albeit bourgeois) eroticism that Nachmann – previously screenwriter of musicals and comedies such as THE BLONDE AND THE BLACK PUSSYCAT – indulges in with obvious fervour. If you like films such as SINNER, EUGENIE DE SADE, THE IMAGE or EXPOSEDC, then this is for you. [AnDeRsSon]